PICTURE OF LOT:Snow-covered field where former Christ the King school and convent once stood. Now leveled and ready for rebirth as community garden. This photo was taken a few days after the monumental blizzard of 2017.

GRAND GOALS:Everyone agrees that the space is big enough to accomplish two goals:

Create a fully-functional urban farm to maximize food output and

Create small plots for residents to garden

ROAD MAP:Getting to these goals is going to require taking many small steps over a several year period.

SMALL STEPS:

Land Transfer: Town, county, and church need to figure out how to transfer land between parties. Jason is working with BC Land Bank, BC Planning, and BC Legal Dept to get details. Darrell gives Jason copy of Delta survey they had done on the site a few years earlier. He notes that surveying pins are still in the ground.

Town Involvement: Getting the Town of Union involved is crucial. Best case scenario would be to get a town board member to meet with us on a regular basis. Jason will reach out to Town Board.

VINES Urban Garden: Amelia outlines VINES strategic goal to build 20 urban farms by 2020. She believes this project is well-positioned to be one of them. The most logical time for us to be included is in the 2018 farms. To do that we must work on getting the Town involved, getting the water situation figured out, cementing a vision for the land, and building a coalition of people and organizations to make it happen.

OASIS Youth Involvement: Holly & Amanda talk about their involvement with VINES. Sounds like a natural fit for our garden.

Church Involvement: Triumphant Life Church considers helping others to be at the core of its mission. Thus they are 100% on-board with making this happen. They have tons of enthusiastic volunteers waiting to direction.

Fencing: Proper fencing is key to the long-term success of the site. Based on people's experience that fence should be 10 feet tall, buried at least 3-4 feet deep and have a tension bar around the perimeter.

Water: The life-blood of any farm is it's water supply. Amelia urges us to figure out the water situation with the Town ASAP. Water solutions are not cheap or simple. Un-metered access is the holy grail, and highly unlikely. However, we should be able to get the Town to let us access the water near its fire hydrant by the apartments. Such access will probably require some sort of frost-free housing that leads to black water pipes - attached to 4x4 type pillars in the garden/farm area.

Equipment: What's available? Tractor Club might be able to help with this.

Electricity: Any possibility?

Advisory Committee: It would be best to piggy-back onto an existing organization, so that we don't have to re-invent the wheel.

Food Distribution: Everyone agrees that food distribution should be done by an outside organization, who already knows how to do this. We want to focus on food production and community gardening.

Soil Testing: Everyone agrees that the soil should be tested. Jason notes that records indicate that the land had never been a manufacturing site. Darrell says his experience with the dirt in this area shows that it's quite rich & fertile.

Tractor Club: One way of getting food planted this year would be to ask the Tractor Club to till the Church's lower lot, plant potatoes (or similar), and then harvest them at the end of the season. Apparently, Phil from Phil's Chicken House is highly involved and would be the one to go to. Everyone agrees that we have time to consider options before deciding what to do this year.

Donations: Lowes, Home Depot, etc.

CONCLUSIONS:Our primary goal this year is to position ourselves to become a VINES Urban Garden in 2018. We need Town involvement, a water plan, all land transferred, and a strong coalition of people and organizations to make it happen.

It seems like it should be possible to make limited progress this year on getting a crop of some simple crop.

FUTURE MEETINGS:Monthly Meetings on Monday or Wednesday at 4:00 or 5:00 sound best for most people. Jason will create a "Doodle" to coordinate schedules.